Cambodia's tax, custom revenues down 2009

Updated:2010-06-08 15:01:07

Tax revenues in Cambodia drop 8 percent to 1 billion U.S. dollars last year due to the impact of global financial downturn, an official said Tuesday.

Hang Chuon Naron, secretary of state for the Ministry of Economy and Finance, said at the opening of a seminar about training for finance officials that the tax department earned a revenue of 362.2 million U.S. dollars in 2009, 2.8 percent increase from 352.4 million U.S. dollars a year earlier, whereas the customs department earned a revenue of 640.2 million U.S. dollars last year, 13 percent decline from 738.6 million U.S. dollars a year earlier.

Hang Chuon Naron said that since the start of public financial reform in 2005, the government attained the revenues growth of 26 percent per year, but due to the global financial crisis, the revenues for the 2009 had declined.

He said that with a lot of revenues, the government has deposited 700 million U.S. dollars in the account at the national bank of Cambodia.

"The government has reformed from a country with budget deficit to a country with budget of great amount," he said.